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• Area's new representatives take their seats

• Sieglock doesn't expect recount

• Parade of Lights to shine Thursday

• Regional Roundup

• Priest clarifies meaning of Obama letter

November 2nd, 2009

• Deputies name suspect in fatal Acampo shooting

November 7th, 2009

• Lodi High graduate was at Fort Hood

• Lining up for flu shots in Lodi

• Tour packs buses as birdwatchers admire Sandhill cranes

• City of Lodi staff looking into possibility of limiting number of taco trucks

• Daytime thieves targeting Lodi homes

• Lodi High School rally featured on 'Good Day Sacramento'

• Out of control

• Homicide suspect Anthony Hubbard arraigned

• Regional Roundup

• New Lodi Memorial rule to combat spread of H1N1: Visitors must be older than 16

November 6th, 2009

• Short sales make up nearly half of Lodi market

• Regional Roundup

• Lodi man accused of smuggling drugs, weapons for inmates at state prison

• 'I-5 Strangler' sentenced to 6 terms of life

• Jury convicts Acampo man of torture, assault of his girlfriend

• Young girl is 200,000th person to assemble AIDS, HIV care kit

• Woman in wheelchair struck by car

November 5th, 2009

• A lower Lodi Lake

• Streetside scarecrows

• San Joaquin County considers moratorium on new Williamson Act contracts

• Speakers address Lodi Unified School District budget shortfalls, plea to keep programs

• Armed robbers still targeting Lodi shops

• Regional Roundup

• California voters have final say over $11 billion water bond

• Weekend bus service to continue until Lodi City Council makes decision

• Paul Tebbel shines spotlight on sandhill cranes

• Your complete guide to Sandhill Crane Festival

• David Diskin is first to give an invocation under new city of Lodi policy

• Man wanted in Acampo homicide gives up to San Joaquin County Sheriff's detectives

November 4th, 2009

• Candle fire

• Rep. Jerry McNerney sets telephone town hall for Thursday

• Jason Behrmann is unanimously named Galt's city manager

• Regional Roundup

• Galt City Council argues over ordinance hiring residents

• San Joaquin County sues state over prison hospital planned for Stockton

• Big win for Allen Baroni in reclamation election

• California sends Democratic loyalist John Garamendi to Congress

• Bicycling father raising awareness of teen suicide

• Lodi City Council weighs raising fares to restore some bus service

November 3rd, 2009

• 500 attend service for Kyle Coumas

• Correction

• Galt considers ordinance that would require city contractors to hire locally

• Regional Roundup

• Have you seen a missing guide dog puppy in Lodi?

• Galt man dies after weekend Highway 12 crash

• Jason Behrmann is top candidate for Galt city manager

• Deputies name suspect in fatal Acampo shooting

• Clarification

November 2nd, 2009

• Downtown Lodi trick or treat

• Public Meetings

• Correction

• Kyle Coumas funeral today

• 27-year-old man shot to death Saturday night in front of Acampo home

• Regional Roundup

• Group investigates reports of haunting

• Sandhill Cranes Festival comes to Lodi next weekend

• Lamborghini lovers gather for show, fine wine, luncheon in Woodbridge

• Lodi's 'Biggest Loser' Christy Richesin runs 5K Halloween race

The following stories have received the most reader comments during the last 7 days.

• Bible is entwined with American civic life (135)
• I predict: A conservative tide will rise in 2010 (73)
• David Diskin is first to give an invocation under new city of Lodi policy (70)
• The Treaty of Tripoli hoax (60)
• Universal health care solves big problems (54)
• Here's what my father knew about the assassination of JFK (35)
• Stuck in neutral? Hardly! (35)
• Words from our forefathers (27)
• City of Lodi staff looking into possibility of limiting number of taco trucks (24)
• Majority cannot deprive the minority (23)

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A placid college campus became the scene of gross harassment and snowball-with-rock attacks

One of the things people did when I was a kid was engage in the thrill and joy of making people miserable during Hell Week in college. Our freshman class had to wear silly clothes and green beanies with little propellers on top and walk a long way back to the dorm in the dead of night, every night for a week.

The upper classmen took us out of town and dropped us off at different locations just to make it interesting and impossible to let us keep one another company on the way back. One of the guys we rode out with stole a school bus to cut down on his personal travel time heading back to the dorm. It was there that the sheriff had a long talk with him; it had a lasting effect. He didn't do another thing all year that threatened to get the attention of the high mugwumps either from the school or the county in which the school was located. He was what we used to call a typical "P.K." (Preacher's Kid).

Well, he did one thing that was troublesome. This all happened in Iowa in 1949. The bus thief in question happened to be going to college on a track scholarship. He had been the best high school shot putter in Montana. I ain't sure, but in those days, there probably weren't 10 guys in Montana who knew what shot puttin' was, much less got good enough at it to be noticed. He was a tall guy with a short temper, so when he found out that I walked his girl back to the dorm from play practice one night, he decided to put his shot-putting skills to the test with a very large snow ball in which he had secreted a fairly noticeable, smooth river rock. He threw it about from here across the street and I managed to put the back of my head right in the exact trajectory of the missile. You have no idea what a surprise it is to find that much snow bouncing off your gourd and then have your gourd go face first into a snow bank. I was KO'ed, so I don't remember being treated by the town doctor, but I do remember being told that I passed out that afternoon and then again in the shower the next morning, and that the stuff running out of my ear wasn't blood, just a nice, warm liquid that somehow managed to pop my ear drum.

Iowa is cold during snowball season and I developed a sudden need for ear muffs, but it all ended well: The guy's girl started seeing yet another P.K., so I had a lot less to fear from the over-sized Montana rock-chucker.

He mellowed nicely and became a college professor. I, on the other hand, never went on another carnival ride without losing my lunch all over my shirt. I ain't much good in the passenger seat of an open-air light-weight aircraft either. (When I told the pilot how I was beginning to feel, he yelled, "Move the mouthpiece!") He couldn't move the tail of the plane, so it was too late to keep it tidy, and I don't even want to talk about the cows we flew over.

Which reminds me of the pre-medical-missionary class mate from Brooklyn. The guys took him out and tied him to a fence post in a cow pasture one cold Hell Week night. Cows are pretty curious but neighborly, but my friend had never seen one up close, so he just assumed he would be eaten alive. He was really ticked off for a long time and had nothing good to say about the culprits who hazed him — at least not in the ensuing weeks. (To give you an idea how much of a Brooklynite he was, here's how he talked: "Thoity doity boids wus choipin' and boipin' on da coib stone…")

He wanted to "moidah dem bums" who took him "out deh in da country." But then he also wanted to eventually emulate Albert Schweitzer, so he spent the rest of the year trying to kill 'em with kindness. I looked in the school directory this week and found that he never made it through med school, nor did he become a minister. He ended up in Missouri, so it's just as well. I just can't picture him preaching saying, "Hey, c'mere youse guys," rather than, "Y'all come, y' heah?"

Bob Bader is a chiropractor who can be reached at bobbyo@softcom.net